The city gardener: I say tomato, you say tomato, don’t call the whole thing off

‘Am I despairing too easily of my efforts to grow tomatoes, thus far quite unsuccessfully?” a reader wrote to me recently. I wrote back immediately, entreating her to never give up on tomatoes. Tomatoes have long been the darlings of home gardeners around the world, and there are good reasons why.

From voluptuous Italian plum varieties that make divine pasta sauce and deep-ribbed meaty beefsteaks ideal for slicing onto burgers to sun-ripened cherry tomatoes ready to be munched straight off the branch, no other fruit offers as much visual pleasure and culinary versatility. I haven’t even mentioned the plants’ heady fragrance or the fact that caterpillars seem to leave them alone.

There’s something about the nightshade family – which also includes aubergines, sweet peppers and chilli peppers – that introduces a zesty excitement into any garden. And people are always finding other ingenious uses for these species, such as the reader who wrote to ask if I would help him find chilli-plant leaves for curing his dandruff.

But today, I have tomatoes on my mind. Early in the morning, we transplant our tomato seedlings into the containers where they will grow and fruit. Tomato plants thrive when they’re allowed to develop strong root systems. When transplanting, gently strip the stem of all leaves, except the top two branches, and bury into the soil. Over the next few weeks, the plants will develop new roots along the buried stem, ensuring a good supply of nutrients, strong support for growing and eventually, fruit-heavy plants.

Tomatoes are hungry feeders, given how prolific they can be. Make sure you enrich your soil at the time of transplanting as well as at regular intervals, with treated manure, fish fertiliser or if you’re not committed to natural methods, an NPK fertiliser for tomatoes. The latter usually has a higher ratio of potassium to nitrogen, ensuring that your plants are all lush, leafy and fruit abundantly.

Tomatoes may need to be pruned or “pinched”. If your tomato plant is of an indeterminate variety, meaning that it will fruit throughout the season (as opposed to the determinate variety, which sets all its fruits in a short burst), you’re better off pruning it. This involves pinching out any new growth in the V-shaped area between the main stem and a branch. Otherwise, the new growth will form a stem and branches of its own. This often results in smaller fruits and a plant that may be very hard to support.

Tomato plants usually need support. When you transplant a seedling, drive a bamboo pole into the soil, a few inches from the plant. As the plant grows, tie the main stem to the pole at regular intervals with nylon stockings or plastic plant ties. You can also use metal fencing to make a cage around the plant.

Tomatoes like companions. For repelling pests, some gardeners swear by the strongly scented French or African ­marigolds. I suspect that you may need a lot of marigolds for a visible effect, but the bright-yellow blooms look pretty anyway and are readily available here.

Aesthetically, I'm rather inspired by Bob Purnell's Crops in Pots, as well as the growing variety of seasonal flowers available in plant shops. For our first companion project, we've planted a round terracotta pot with three black-eyed Susans in the centre, two dwarf cherry tomatoes on either side and a border of parsley round the edge – all bought from our local nursery.

In other containers, the tomato plants will be kept company by Genovese basil and rocket. My girls like to call these their “pizza garden” – a pleasantly apt name for our inspiring seed-to-plate journey with tomatoes.

Shumaila Ahmed is a Dubai-based gardener, teacher, researcher and writer.